Hi all,

Situation- Brand new glass coffee table and two kids normally use to being outside housebound for two days. Well you can probably guess how that turned out by the following question.

Does anybody know of a product to repair or at least hide a rather deep scratch on toughened glass

Cheers

It's just a guess, but the guys who repair windscreens may be able to help.

Thanks decrepit, sometimes the simplest ideas escape thought. I did find on line some scratch repmoval products, but they might be more gimmicky then useful. Not too expensive, so if the scratch enoys me enough I will might give them a try.

My suggestion is put some duct tape over it till they turn 18

Toph, I used to buff out scratches on toughened glass kitchen splashbacks after it does the rounds from glass company (where I semt my templates) - to tempering plant via truck, and another 350kms via truck to me. Tempered glass seems to scratch easier than float, but also fairly easy to buff out (depending on the depth of the scratch). My advice would be - go to a local glazier & ask them. They would be forever buffing out scratches due to poor handling, transport & apprentices just being careless.

Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

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Mark _australia said..
Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

Actually it doesn't
but you could try tooth paste (or any other polishing compound) and soft polishing pad on a drill, It should help to hide some scratches.
Definitely works easy on softer materials like perplex.

Toughened glass does scratch easily because it is softened making it less brittle and more flex.
Tooth paste is indeed the best bet but a scratch is a scatch and it ain't goin no where.

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Toph said..

Does anybody know of a product to repair or at least hide a rather deep scratch on toughened glass

A whole bunch of deeper scratches crossing it in a random pattern then etched in with hydroflouraric acid.

Cool guys, thanks.

So here is the plan.....

I am going to put multiple deeper scratches perpendicular to the one already there until I stop being an anal retentive pr!ck and feel better about myself and remember kids will be kids. Then I'm going to cover it with tape until the kids are 18 when I will hand them a tube of toothpaste. They will waste the paste trying to cover their hickys (a trick that doesn't work) and I'll be forced to call a pro glass man to fix a table that will now be 13 years old

That's why we come here. I can see the answer so clearly now

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Macroscien said..

Mark _australia said..
Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

Actually it doesn't
but you could try tooth paste (or any other polishing compound) and soft polishing pad on a drill, It should help to hide some scratches.
Definitely works easy on softer materials like perplex.

Actually it does

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Haydn24 said..

Macroscien said..

Mark _australia said..
Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

Actually it doesn't
but you could try tooth paste (or any other polishing compound) and soft polishing pad on a drill, It should help to hide some scratches.
Definitely works easy on softer materials like perplex.

Actually it does

Lesson for the day

Glass, however, is actually neither a liquid - supercooled or otherwise - nor a solid. It is an amorphous solid - a state somewhere between those two states of matter.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/

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sausage said..

Haydn24 said..

Macroscien said..

Mark _australia said..
Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

Actually it doesn't
but you could try tooth paste (or any other polishing compound) and soft polishing pad on a drill, It should help to hide some scratches.
Definitely works easy on softer materials like perplex.

Actually it does

Lesson for the day

Glass, however, is actually neither a liquid - supercooled or otherwise - nor a solid. It is an amorphous solid - a state somewhere between those two states of matter.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/

Actually it doesn't (at room temperature). "Amorphous" refers to the structure, "solid" to the mechanical properties.

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Toph said..
Cool guys, thanks.

So here is the plan.....

I am going to put multiple deeper scratches perpendicular to the one already there until I stop being an anal retentive pr!ck and feel better about myself and remember kids will be kids. Then I'm going to cover it with tape until the kids are 18 when I will hand them a tube of toothpaste. They will waste the paste trying to cover their hickys (a trick that doesn't work) and I'll be forced to call a pro glass man to fix a table that will now be 13 years old

That's why we come here. I can see the answer so clearly now

i can see it now, toothpaste is given to the kids,they get it all over the carpet.
now you have to get the scratches and the carpet fixed

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d1 said..

sausage said..

Haydn24 said..

Macroscien said..

Mark _australia said..
Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

Actually it doesn't
but you could try tooth paste (or any other polishing compound) and soft polishing pad on a drill, It should help to hide some scratches.
Definitely works easy on softer materials like perplex.

Actually it does

Lesson for the day

Glass, however, is actually neither a liquid - supercooled or otherwise - nor a solid. It is an amorphous solid - a state somewhere between those two states of matter.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/

Actually it doesn't (at room temperature). "Amorphous" refers to the structure, "solid" to the mechanical properties.

Actually it does

All mediaeval windows are thicker at the bottom as it has flowed.

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Mark _australia said..

Actually it does

All mediaeval windows are thicker at the bottom as it has flowed.

Actually it doesn't. Really

But it is a popular fallacy. Suggested reading: io9.gizmodo.com/the-glass-is-a-liquid-myth-has-finally-been-destroyed-496190894?IR=T

"By studying a glob of 20 million-year-old amber, scientists have proven once and for all that glass does not flow. Some people claim that stained glass windows in old churches are thicker at the bottom than at the top because glass flows slowly like a liquid. We’ve known this isn’t true for quite some time now; these windows are thicker at the bottom owing to the production process. Back during medieval times, a lump of molten glass was rolled, expanded, and flattened before being spun into a disc and cut into panes. These sheets were thicker around the edges and installed such that the heavier side was at the bottom."

More references debunking this urban legend can be found here:

dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html
www.infoplease.com/askeds/does-glass-flow-old-windows.html
www.glassnotes.com/WindowPanes.html

^^ bugger. Should not believe science books when they debunked stuff.

anhwaaay, looks like he's back to toothpaste

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Mark _australia said...

d1 said..

sausage said..

Haydn24 said..

Macroscien said..

Mark _australia said..
Glass flows a little, so give it 400 years and it will not be so easily seen.

Actually it doesn't
but you could try tooth paste (or any other polishing compound) and soft polishing pad on a drill, It should help to hide some scratches.
Definitely works easy on softer materials like perplex.

Actually it does

Lesson for the day

Glass, however, is actually neither a liquid - supercooled or otherwise - nor a solid. It is an amorphous solid - a state somewhere between those two states of matter.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/

Actually it doesn't (at room temperature). "Amorphous" refers to the structure, "solid" to the mechanical properties.

Actually it does

All mediaeval windows are thicker at the bottom as it has flowed.

You didn't read the link, did you?

^^^ no I was still coming to terms with amorphous vs solid and thinking about gummy bears and Chico's

Oops cross out the latter, Milsy will think it racist.

TBH I had heard the glass flowing so many times from so many sources I thought it irrefutable. It is still in the science books etc. Bit like evolution I guess

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boofy said..
My suggestion is duct tape the offspring until they turn 18

fixed it for you


stephen

buy a new piece of glass

Glass most certainly flows.

We removed the windows from our old farm house (built in 1967) to be reused in town.

The bottoms of these full length windows were 2 to 3mm thicker than the tops. We had to go a size up with the aluminium extrusion to hold them.

We refitted them up the other way up, so our grandkids can still use them at a later date.

They are fitted where they cant be accessed, so didn't require safety glass.

Didn't matter whether they had had more sunlight or direct sunlight they were all tapered.

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Chook2 said..
Glass most certainly flows.

We removed the windows from our old farm house (built in 1967) to be reused in town.

The bottoms of these full length windows were 2 to 3mm thicker than the tops. We had to go a size up with the aluminium extrusion to hold them.

We refitted them up the other way up, so our grandkids can still use them at a later date.

They are fitted where they cant be accessed, so didn't require safety glass.

Didn't matter whether they had had more sunlight or direct sunlight they were all tapered.

I think the suggestion is that older work techniques meant that the panes of glass would be thicker at one end of pane. So, they are mounted with the heavier side at the bottom.

Can you flip the glass over !

Thanks guys for all the comments. It certainly opened up more of a debate then I thought a scratch would do

Buying a a new one may be harder then you'ld think Cobra. I bought the last of a discontinued line straight from the warehouse. I bought it because it was the closest thing I could find that matches the TV cabinet. I have a feeling that the cost of the glass would be nearly the cost of the whole thing.

Sandfoot, I don't think flipping it over would work. To stop the glass from moving around on the base, there are 'feet' recessed into the glass base.

Apparently glass scratches easier then I thought, and will likely be scratched some more (the perils of having young children apparently). After my initial hissy fit and rant here on SB, I've largely gotten over it

Yeh I read that "Formula", but ours had a sag out from where they had been retained in the bottom of the old frames.

Unusual.

My wife said her granny used to wipe bees wax onto glass and polish it smooth, to not show any scratches.

Might be worth a try.

Give your kids a bit of discipline , ie a clip round the ear, they won't scratch a thing,

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Toph said..
Thanks guys for all the comments. It certainly opened up more of a debate then I thought a scratch would do
Buying a a new one may be harder then you'ld think Cobra. I bought the last of a discontinued line straight from the warehouse. I bought it because it was the closest thing I could find that matches the TV cabinet. I have a feeling that the cost of the glass would be nearly the cost of the whole thing.
Sandfoot, I don't think flipping it over would work. To stop the glass from moving around on the base, there are 'feet' recessed into the glass base.
Apparently glass scratches easier then I thought, and will likely be scratched some more (the perils of having young children apparently). After my initial hissy fit and rant here on SB, I've largely gotten over it

Not that I have done it but watched a glazier do some stuff once and he said it is piss easy.
Cutting is obviously score and snap. Using GOOD tools of course, so $20 scribe cutter, not the $5 Bunning "glass cutter" wheel thing...
Then bevel on edges can be done with a belt sander (perpendicular to edge) and glaziers just use a big linisher, same thing.

So thus DIY may be cost effective. Fin secondhand un-scratched glass, yoochoob all the requisite skills, cut to size and bevel away.

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Mark _australia said..

Toph said..
Thanks guys for all the comments. It certainly opened up more of a debate then I thought a scratch would do
Buying a a new one may be harder then you'ld think Cobra. I bought the last of a discontinued line straight from the warehouse. I bought it because it was the closest thing I could find that matches the TV cabinet. I have a feeling that the cost of the glass would be nearly the cost of the whole thing.
Sandfoot, I don't think flipping it over would work. To stop the glass from moving around on the base, there are 'feet' recessed into the glass base.
Apparently glass scratches easier then I thought, and will likely be scratched some more (the perils of having young children apparently). After my initial hissy fit and rant here on SB, I've largely gotten over it

Not that I have done it but watched a glazier do some stuff once and he said it is piss easy.
Cutting is obviously score and snap. Using GOOD tools of course, so $20 scribe cutter, not the $5 Bunning "glass cutter" wheel thing...
Then bevel on edges can be done with a belt sander (perpendicular to edge) and glaziers just use a big linisher, same thing.

So thus DIY may be cost effective. Fin secondhand un-scratched glass, yoochoob all the requisite skills, cut to size and bevel away.

If its toughened glass I don't think its possible. On 'the block' or 'house rules' or something like that, they had a toughened glass dining table and they wanted to cut it down. They couldn't. Its supposed to be tempered after it is cut to size.

Being a modern table, it probably is toughened glass.